..I haven't read a book since finishing Gone Girl (side note: O.Em.Gee. Most compelling/thrilling/frustrating book I have ever read!) over a month ago. Whhhaaaatttt...?
I have been on a bit of a magazine kick lately (my faves are HGTV Magazine, Better Homes and Gardens, and Country Living) so that has been the majority of my nighttime reading. Don't get me wrong: magazines are great! But.. magazines cannot surprise, thrill, comfort, or entertain quite as much as a good book.
I'm a lover of memoirs and biographies so that's what I went searching for--and this is what I found!
I had never heard of A Lucky Child before but after reading the description (and tearing up), I knew it was a story that could not be passed up. |
Thomas Buergenthal, now a Judge in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, tells his astonishing experiences as a young boy in his memoir A LUCKY CHILD. He arrived at Auschwitz
at age 10 after surviving two ghettos and a labor camp. Separated first
from his mother and then his father, Buergenthal managed by his wits
and some remarkable strokes of luck to survive on his own. Almost two
years after his liberation, Buergenthal was miraculously reunited with
his mother and in 1951 arrived in the U.S. to start a new life. (Summary via Amazon)
I have heard nothing but good things about Sedaris' humorous memoir--I know I'm a little late to the Corduroy and Denim party (about 8 years late), but I can't wait to start it. |
David Sedaris plays in the snow with his sisters. He goes on
vacation with his family. He gets a job selling drinks. He attends his
brother's wedding. He mops his sister's floor. He gives directions to a
lost traveler. He eats a hamburger. He has his blood sugar tested. It
all sounds so normal, doesn't it? In his newest collection of essays,
David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity
teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and
hidden motives -- a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument
can be the highest form of love. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and
Denim is another unforgettable collection from one of the wittiest and
most original writers at work today. (Summary via Amazon)
Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel
was the high priestess of couture who created the look of the modern
woman. By the 1920s she had amassed a fortune and went on to create an
empire. But her life from 1941 to 1954 has long been shrouded in rumor
and mystery, never clarified by Chanel or her many biographers. Hal
Vaughan exposes the truth of her wartime collaboration and her long
affair with the playboy Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage—who ran a spy
ring and reported directly to Goebbels. Vaughan pieces together how
Chanel became a Nazi agent, how she escaped arrest after the war and
joined her lover in exile in Switzerland, and how—despite suspicions
about her past—she was able to return to Paris at age seventy and
rebuild the iconic House of Chanel. (Summary via Amazon)
Have you read any of these books? Can you recommend a good memoir?
Also, I recently joined Goodreads. I still don't know what all I'm doing, but I'd love to be friends!
I've read the first one... such a good book. :)
ReplyDeleteI have not read these though the first one sounds good. I don't usually prefer memoirs as a genre!
ReplyDeleteGone Girl was so crazy. I still can't get over it!! I'm reading The Paris Wife right now (about Ernest Hemingway's first wife) and I just finished Below Stairs (a memoir about a kitchen maid.) Both are good!
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